Bathurst 1000

[Sinful]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdjvS1k-bLQ

[d00dz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdjvS1k-bLQ

Damm 32s

lol

[Shell]

haha "look at the power of the Niss-ANN"

very cool though... gotta find someone with a DVD of when the skylines were there, would love to watch the whole thing. I like the Sierras as well

[FATAZZ]

you can download them

i have the 91 bathurst

[Sinful]

jump on ebay im getting the 1992 race on dvd for $20

[Sinful]

some more great items got to love the year of the Godzilllllaaaaaaaaa

[ish]

you can download them

i have the 91 bathurst

where did you get the 91 mate? ...

i have the whole 92 bathurst highlights package where jimmy goes off at the crowd seeding.

[Sinful]

you can alos get them through DUKE video for a nice price if you want but a down load would be sweet

[ish]

you can alos get them through DUKE video for a nice price if you want but a down load would be sweet

92 Race

EDit found it !!!

91 race untested

Edited August 13, 2006 by ishh

[Sinful]

:sorcerer:

[Sinful]

so if you like ill put the links up got to love the windfield car

[FATAZZ]

i got it from someone who posted a Link in SAU forums somewhere?

i will be attempting to put it on dvd asap

[Slide]

hahaha Just look at the power of the NiSAAAAAAAN

[Sinful]

the motor

[d00dz]

92 Race

EDit found it !!!

91 race untested

omg the very old 7 SPORTS logo what a trip down memory lane..

confirmed both are good. ~2hrs long

on the 92 race the track was wet and rainy @ about 1.48 the jimmy richards 32gtr damm, as it comes down the hill turns it into a 4car pile up!! nooo soo bad..

[JaiJai]

gonna get home tonight grab a carton and a few mates....

ishh thank you for whats gonna be a good monday down memory lane

[JUN`R32]

classic vid

nice to see the holdens and fords being left behind for dead..............

[Sinful]

BATHURST 1992

And so it all began. The weekend before Bathurst arrives along with the first of the keen campers and the teams trickling into town. Everyone waits for the first session on the Wednesday to see who is going to be fastest, and who is going to last.

Wednesday practice showed the Nissans were the quick ones.

Qualifying

The official qualifying started on Thursday, the Skaife / Richards entry was under the 2m 15s mark. Johnson / Bowe, Mezera, and Longhurst were also fast in the morning session. In the afternoon Bowe was quickest, still fractionally slower than the GT-R had been during the morning.

The best times were:

1.Skaife / Richards (GT-R) 2m 13.82s

2.Perkins / Harrington (Commodore VL) 2m 14.08s

3.Johnson / Bowe (Sierra) 2m 14.56s

4.Niedzwiedz / Hansford (Sierra) 2m 14.98s

5.Longhurst / Cecotto (M3) 2m 15.26s

6.Seton / Jones (EB Falcon) 2m 15.53s

7.Mezera / Jones (VP Commodore) 2m 15.74s

8.Gibbs / Onslow (GT-R) 2m 15.75s

9.Brock / Reuter (VP Commodore) 2m 15.98s

10.Percy / Grice (VP Commodore) 2m 16.13s

11.Olofsson / Crompton (GT-R) 2m 16.17s – this was the second Gibson car.

Saturday Qualifying

The top ten run off on Saturday represented the last opportunity to improve the top drivers grid position. Dick Johnson grabbed pole with an awesomely quick lap of 2m 12.893s – the quickest a Sierra has every lapped the mountain, and only just fractionally slower than Skaife's pole time last year.

The GT-Rs were having a hard time with the extra weight they were carrying, and the boost restriction. The teams spent time carefully preparing the cars for the race on Sunday.

Sunday Race Day

A bit of rain was falling as the field took to the track for some warm-up laps. It went bottom up for Longhurst when his co-driver smacked into a wall and damaged the M3 – it was repaired in time for the race though with no lasting damage. Brock broke a tail shaft in his new Commodore, Unfortunately the team didn't have a spare VP shaft, but could make one up out of two VN shafts in time for the race.

At the start of the race, the field took off, except for Brock who had snapped his new tail shaft. Johnson managed to hold back Larry Perkins in the fast starting Commodore. Perkins then lost a heap of places when he grabbed 5th gear instead of 3rd. At the end of the first lap, Johnson lead Skaife, Gibbs, Mezera, Niedzwietz, and Perkins.

Skaife took Johnson at the end of lap 2 on the pit straight. Niedzwietz was able to make up a couple of places and took the Gibbs GT-R on lap 5. Gibbs started slowing and slid down the order until he was in 11th place. The problem was the GT-Rs windscreen was covered in oil, which the pit crew tried to get rid of by throwing buckets of soapy water at as it drove past the pits, the officials stopped them from that after a while.

After 10 laps Skaife had a handy lead of 5.2 seconds between the GT-R and the Dick Johnson Sierra. Another 10 seconds behind Johnson was Niedzwietz in another Sierra. By lap 20 the lead was out to 19 seconds, with Percy in the HRT VP Commodore now up into 3rd place.

At 11am the clouds got dark and the rain started. Nearly everyone dived into the pits for full wet weather tyres, except for the Nissan GT-Rs which remained out on the track, quite safe with the four wheel drive. This bought the Olofsson / Crompton GT-R up to second place. The Johnson / Bowe car was now more than 1 minute behind Skaife.

Much of the field were having difficulty with badly fogged windscreens (these days all the windscreens have heater elements in them), one team even smashing out their back window in an effort to clear the mist off the windows.

The lead Nissan pitted on schedule, and resumed with Richards driving, lapping four seconds a lap faster then the Johnson / Bowe car was able to. Not long after the 33rd lap, Denny Hulme passed away as his M3 drifted off the track and ran along the wall on Conrod straight. This bought out the pace car. Up until then Richards had almost managed to lap the Johnson / Bowe Sierra, but it all was lost when the pace car bunched the field.

When the pace car left the track, Richards lead Bowe by 6 seconds, one lap later it was 27 seconds. The leading GT-R managed a lap 15 seconds faster than Bowe. Crompton in the second GT-R was also lapping quickly in the rain. The rest of the field was 1 lap down.

In the early afternoon Gibbs picked up a large dent in the side of the GT-R when a Sierra had emerged from the spray on the track and was unable to avoid hitting Gibbs, the damage was only cosmetic.

At the 53rd lap point, the two Winfield Nissans were still leading, with Longhurst, Bowe and the GIO GT-R following. The pace car came back out on the track after Colin Bond's co-driver had clipped the back of a Commodore on Conrod, sending the Holden into the wall. Richards was just about to put Bowe a lap down when the pace car joined.

Richards used the pace car to pit for a load of fuel and a brake pad change. The rain was actually helping the GT-R conserve it's brakes. Skaife resumed the driving duties. The second car came in shortly afterwards for brake pads as well and a driver change with Olofsson returning to the wheel. Longhurst and Johnson where out there going for 3rd place, Longhurst had problems with his gear knob that had come off and was stabbing his hand with every gear change. Glen Seton gave an interesting account of the conditions: “You're just guessing down the straight, as soon as you get behind someone the heat from the car causes the windscreen to instantly fog. All you can do is to stick your head out the window and watch the white lines on the side of the track – that's how bad it is.”

By lap 71, Skaife still lead Crompton by 20 seconds, with a gap of five seconds back to Johnson. The rain was now blowing in sideways in a strong wind, the pace car came out again only 25 minutes after it had last been out – a Commodore had crashed at Forrest Elbow. There was a little debate weather to red flag the race at this point – the flag marshals couldn't see each other, but a report from a nearby town said the rain was going to back off.

Onslow in the GIO GT-R ran into the side of another car and damaged an oil cooler in the accident, he was able to get round into the pits to have it bypassed. Quite a few of the teams pitted to change from the wet tyres to slicks in the improving conditions. Skaife and Crompton continued leading, both of them on wets which were starting to over heat in the drying conditions. Skaife dived in for a tyre change and resumed still in the lead. Crompton did the same shortly afterwards.

As the laps climbed into the 90's, the track dried out and Bowe was able to make some ground on the Nissans, this was the best opportunity as he couldn't match them in the wet, but the dry was a distinct advantage to the Sierra. On lap 93 he dived past the Olofsson GT-R for second place. Skaife pulled out a few faster laps to maintain a buffer of about 30 seconds between the GT-R and the Sierra of Bowe.

At the 113 lap mark the Olofsson GT-R pitted for brake pads, fuel, and a driver change. The pads were inspected and found to be only half worn so there was no need to do a full pad change in the lead car. Crompton resumed, and shortly afterwards Skaife pitted for a driver change to Richards and fuel – no need for pads. Bowe was briefly in the lead.

Jim Richards had some dramas though – “I had a rag which I was using to keep the screen clean, only it got hooked up in the extinguisher and set it off! I wound down the windows and got rid of the stuff.”

Bowe pitted on lap 117, for Johnson, pads, fuel, and a top up of oil. By 4pm Johnson was over a minute behind Richards, with the second GT-R about 50 seconds behind Johnson. A report came though of torrential rain and hail approaching.

On lap 144 Skaife was heard to exclaim “It's raining! Good stuff!” in the pits as he watched TV. Richards was out on slicks and it was hosing down. Over the top of the hill Richards had encountered a wall of water, the GT-R was uncontrollable and slid into the wall. The GT-R had understeered into the left hand wall on the right-hand turn leading into Skyline from The Cutting as it hit a torrential downpour exiting The Cutting. The left front suspension was broken. "It was spitting rain in the Cutting, but when I got out of there, it was just torrential...It understeered straight into the wall. I could do nothing." Jim said.

The track was in chaos – there was a large incident on top of the hill with three Commodores and a Corolla going into the walls. There was another Commodore in the wall near Forrest Elbow. After another two Commodores slid into the stricken car near Forrest Elbow, the GT-R limped onto the scene and aquaplaned into the mess. At that point the race was red-flagged.

The rules are quite clear – when a race is red-flagged and cannot be restarted, the results are taken from one lap previous. That meant that the lead Winfield GT-R had won. Richards said “I was going about half a mile an hour in low gear, then it accelerated off the track. I had no idea we had won. I expected a punch in the mouth when I got back but instead we won the race!” The second GT-R claimed 3rd place behind the Johnson / Bowe Sierra.

There was a very hostile reception on the podium that afternoon. The crowd was ugly, and Johnson wound them up in his second place acceptance speech. Jim was very upset when he took the podium “I'm just really stunned for words. I can't believe the reception. I thought Australian race fans had a lot more going than this. This is a bloody disgrace. This is going to remain with me for a long time, you're a pack of arseholes!” he told the booing crowd. The corks remained in the champagne.

An upset Skaife later said in the post race press conference: “I just felt that what we got out there wasn't warranted. I feel sorry for Dick and John – their car was running at the end but rules are rules. Winners are grinners, and the rest can go to hell.”

And so closed a chapter in Australian motor racing history. The Group A formula had come to an end, the next year would bring a new series of Holden vs. Ford competition.

[ish]

My opinion is they just loved that car>>>> Richard's and sKaife.

Skaife looks to be enjoying himself alot more than he does now ...haha

Shame he wont comment on it theses days because he had plenty to say back then...

Theses moments in our race history inspired me to get my R32 GTR period!!! No game, no movie...

[Sinful]

i want the Windfield GTR but I dont think I have saved enough yet buggar